饮料(yǐn liào) - drink, soft drink, beverage in Mandarin

饮料 (yǐn liào) is the drinks category: the fizzy stuff, the juices, the bottled teas, the things in the fridge by the till. On a menu it is a heading, sitting apart from 酒水 for the alcohol and from the hot drinks list.

It behaves like any ordinary noun. 一瓶饮料 a bottle of something, 含糖饮料 sugary drinks, 饮料机 a drinks machine. The verb is 喝, never 吃, and the question 喝点什么饮料 is a standard offer to a guest.

The trap is that English "drink" is far wider. 饮料 excludes alcohol, so a beer is 酒 and asking a barman for a 饮料 gets you a soft drink. It also excludes plain water and the hot tea already on the table. And it is a category word rather than an order: you ask for 一杯可乐, not 一杯饮料, in the same way you would not walk into a pub and ask for a beverage.